During the past twenty four months, Greece has been subjected to the kind of brutal austerity no other European nation had to endure since 1945.

One of the key factors upon which viable growth can be built is human security. Approaching human security with the requisite attention has been practically absent from the continuing chaotic “debate” on how to address the Greek crisis.

In a recent article, former Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio pointed out that Europe, in deciding to move toward a common currency back in the late 1980s, made its “greatest miscalculation [in that it accepted] the assumption of stability while on the verge of a systemic transformation impregnated with volatility.”

The New Year 2012 arrived with more grim news for Greece. Our “rescuers” demand more austerity to be imposed upon an exhausted populace that has already suffered, on the average, a 50 percent cut in real personal income in a country where expanding poverty co-exists with some of the highest consumer prices in Europe.

RIEAS participated in a workshop on Greek-Israeli Security Relations in Tel-Aviv University on 24 November 2011.

A summary of the workshop panels is provided:

First Panel

Prof. Alex Bligh: What we are facing today – mass upheavals, Iranian threat, deteriorating relations with Turkey, issues over natural gas, prospects of more democracy/stability in the future Middle East. Meanwhile, we must encourage growing relations between Greece and Israel on the economic, security, and academic levels.

The concept of “Greek-Turkish friendship” always struck us as incongruous, to say the least. The history between the two countries is so against any sprouting of “friendship” that the crowing of the “pragmatist” community in Greece -- i.e. those Greeks who would rather defend Turkey than their own country in the interest of “peace” -- strikes us as borderline treason.

Dr. George Vardangalos
(Electrical and Computer Engineer, Independent IT & Business Consultant)

Copyright: www.rieas.gr

Introduction

The EU Summit on 8-9 December 2011 has finished. It was decided that Eurozone countries will aim to finalize by March a new treaty that imposes more central control over national budgets. The treaty will set out stricter rules for a “fiscal compact”.

RIEAS participated in a workshop on Greek-Israeli Security Relations in Tel-Aviv University on 24 November 2011.

A summary of the workshop panels is provided:

First Panel

Prof. Alex Bligh: What we are facing today – mass upheavals, Iranian threat, deteriorating relations with Turkey, issues over natural gas, prospects of more democracy/stability in the future Middle East. Meanwhile, we must encourage growing relations between Greece and Israel on the economic, security, and academic levels. Today's meeting is intentionally closed and formed as a small group, keeping in mind that a natural goal of anyone who has worked in the government is to successfully affect decision-makers.

When in 2004 George Papandreou assumed the leadership of the Pasok socialist party, founded by his father in 1974, insiders applauded -- but also quietly worried.

Everybody knew that “Giorgaki” (the Greek diminutive of ‘George’) was a real nice guy but no leader at all.

Everybody knew that Giorgaki was getting the baton because of his last name, not because he was the leader demanded by the times.

Everybody knew that the “prince” of Pasok was entitled, by God’s given right, to lead from the front and take Pasok to victory.

(AFTER THE REFERENDUM THAT NEVER WAS)

What happened to the referendum? It just disappeared!

In actuality, there was no real intention to hold a plebiscite -- but Greece’s European “partners” could not decipher Papandreou’s chaotic political bluffing on time. They took him at his word and when he arrived in Cannes to report to Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, he was taken to the political woodshed and given a thorough thrashing. On returning home, with international media heaping more untold abuse on Greece the Aberrant, Papandreou announced with a straight face that, no, there would be no referendum because the main opposition New Democracy (ND) party had announced in the meantime that it would agree to in effect endorse the latest Troika genocidal austerity package. Papandreou further told his cabinet that the reason he proclaimed the referendum (an announcement that sent markets tumbling and spread fear and loathing across Europe as all scurried to take cover from a Greek contagion) was to effectively browbeat the opposition into displaying “consensus” -- that is to say, approval of the demolition job on Greece he and his cabinet of automatons are currently undertaking on contract with the Troika.

On October 28, angry anti-austerity protesters across Greece interrupted parades meant to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War of 1940-41 and forced government officials to flee the official stands.

In Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, thousands of protesters scuttled the traditional military parade and booed and heckled the president of the Hellenic Republic, Karolos Papoulias, and his entourage. The president was particularly miffed when he heard some in the mass of people calling him “traitor,” presumably because of his cozy relationship with the ruling “socialists” of the Pasok party -- which Papoulias faithfully served as foreign minister in the 1980s.

The slow, agonizing death by economic strangulation of Greece in the hands of the “troika” (IMF, EU, ECB) appears to be only the opening macabre chapter of a process of dissolution that could eventually affect the political stability and longevity of the European “union” itself.

It is by now starkly obvious that EU member states hardly agree on anything that has do with “common” policies. The tougher the knot, the more complicated and intractable the pan-European wrangling over potential solutions becomes.

The “union” of course was never meant to be a union, at least under the rules and regulations that developed over the years since the first appearance of the European Communities.

(OR PREPARING FOR THE FINAL SOLUTION)

For the past twenty months, Greece has been subjected to a methodical economic genocide courtesy of the Papandreou regime, the servile carrier of orders from the thoroughly reviled “troika” comprising the IMF, the EU, and the ECB.

In these twenty months, the Greek people have been subjected to a dizzying onslaught of “reform” demanded by creditors that has demolished every social and labor protection built over decades of struggle and suffering.

On top of that, Greeks, collectively and individually, have been ridiculed, humiliated, and accused of being the scum of the earth who, with their profligate ways, have succeeded to undermine the European “union’s” own economic stability and, even, threaten the world with a catastrophic crisis.